Art Heals All Wounds
Do you think art can change the world? So do I! We’re at a pivotal moment when scientists, medical practitioners, and creatives are coming together in recognition of the ways that art plays an indispensable role in our well-being, as individuals, communities, and societies. In each episode we hear from artists and creatives who share their inspiration for their work and its wider impact. These conversations about transformative artistic practices show the ways that art can be a catalyst for healing and change.
How do we change the world? One artist at a time.
Art Heals All Wounds
Claudia Bernardi on Art Against Brutality: Community and Collaborative Art Projects with Survivors of Political Violence
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Painting the Unspeakable: Art, War, and Remembering with Claudia Bernardi
I sit down with artist Claudia Bernardi to talk about her new book, Art Against Brutality: Community and Collaborative Art Projects with Survivors of Political Violence. Claudia lived through the military dictatorship in Argentina. In 1992, she was asked to work as a cartographer with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team on the exhumation of the site of the El Mozoté massacre in El Salvador — an experience that led her to found Walls of Hope, a community mural project working alongside survivors of war, sexual violence, and displacement. We talk about memory, testimony, and what happens when survivors of unspeakable violence pick up a paintbrush for the first time. This is a conversation about murals, human rights, collective memory, and the people who refuse to let their stories disappear.
Episode Highlights (Timestamps)
- 00:54 — Introducing Claudia Bernardi and her background as an installation artist, painter, and printmaker
- 01:02 — The military dictatorship in Argentina and the 30,000 desaparecidos
- 01:25 — How the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team began searching for the disappeared
- 05:23 — What Art Against Brutality is and where the murals were created
- 06:07 — Who was Rufina Amaya Marquez, the sole survivor of the El Mozoté massacre
- 09:28 — Claudia's role as cartographer during the El Mozoté exhumation
- 11:54 — The moment the idea for working with art and children took shape at the exhumation site
- 19:11 — Founding Walls of Hope and building the "Perquin model"
- 27:34 — What it means to remember, and what survivors choose to put on the wall
- 29:38 — The women of Huehuetenango and painting a mural about surviving sexual violence
- 35:55 — Returning to Argentina to paint a mural at ESMA, the country's largest former detention and extermination center
- 44:23 — Painting murals with incarcerated, unaccompanied migrant youth in the U.S. criminal justice system
- 53:02 — A devastating conversation with one young participant about disappearance and being forgotten
- 1:02:11 — Where to find the book and learn more about Walls of Hope
Where to order the book Art Against Brutality
Learn more about Walls of Hope
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PAM
Do you believe art can change the world? So do I! On this show, we meet artists whose work is doing just that. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds. I'm your host, Pam Uzzell..
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PAM
Today's guest is Claudia Bernardi. Claudia is an installation artist, painter and printmaker.
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PAM
She lived through the military dictatorship in Argentina that lasted from 1976 to 1983.
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This brutal regime resulted in 30,000 desaparecidos, citizens, who were kidnaped, tortured, then killed. Their bodies never found,
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with loved ones still searching to recover them.
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PAM
In 1986, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team was formed to search for the disappeared of Argentina.
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PAM
Then in 1992, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team was asked to help in an exhumation of El Mozoté, El Salvador, a site of a 1981 massacre.
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PAM
Claudia was asked
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to come with them as a cartographer,
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mapping the evidence found at the site.
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PAM
This experience in El Mozoté changed
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her life,
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giving her an idea about how art might be used by survivors of political violence.
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PAM
Claudia founded a collaborative art education and human rights initiative in El Salvador called Walls of Hope.
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PAM
This
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PAM
collaborative
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PAM
art school was formed to aid victims of violence and displacement in creating community murals that visually share the
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PAM
often unspoken atrocities committed against them.
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PAM
This idea is strange and wonderful and so powerful.
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PAM
Community members affected by violence participate in creating murals that show.
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PAM
the painful and brutal memories of the past,
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and sometimes hopeful images for the future.
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Walls of Hope teachers, Claudia and three Salvadoran artists America Argentina Vaquerano, Claudia Verenice Flores Escolero,
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PAM
and Rosa del Carmen Argueta
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facilitate in the planning of these murals, but they don't do any of the artwork.
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PAM
The images created are all visual testimony of the survivor participants.
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PAM
Claudia has now written a book called Art Against Brutality. Community and Collaborative Art Projects with Survivors of Political Violence.
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PAM
This book shares the stories of several murals created in the Americas by communities affected by political violence, including several in the United States. What's amazing
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PAM
is that the artists of all these murals are untrained, but the final results are incredibly beautiful and also very haunting.
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Claudia’s writing as she shares the history behind each project
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is also beautiful and unflinching.
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PAM
There's real power in refusing to forget and refusing to stay quiet.
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PAM
Art Against Brutality shows the power in remembering, remembering the stories from brutal regimes that are intentionally lost in the rush to sanitize history.
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PAM
For, some
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PAM
survivors they were speaking aloud the horrifying acts they and their loved ones endured for the first time.
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Creating art and community changed these atrocities
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from their personal, painful secrets to a history.
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PAM
Reading about these murals changed me.
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PAM
I'm not
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PAM
really sure how to explain it better than to quote Claudia from our interview.
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PAM
When she talks about these murals, she says
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PAM
“They are composed with sorrow. They are born from tragedy, and they end up being such a remarkable wonder of beauty and how that happens, I have no idea. I just know that that happens.”
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PAM
I couldn't describe the impact of this book any better than that.
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PAM
You want to know how you can really help me keep this show going? Follow me on your favorite listening app. So easy. Right? And if you really want to give the show a boost, leave me a five star rating or review.
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PAM
Hi, Claudia. Thank you so much for being on Art Heals All Wounds today.
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CLAUDIA
Pam, thank you so much for the invitation.
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PAM
I've just
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PAM
finished reading your incredibly moving and beautiful book, Art Against Brutality. Can you share a little bit about what this book is?
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CLAUDIA
Art Against Brutality is a book that presents, in each chapter, the creation of a mural that was painted by survivors of political violence in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, and also in the United States.
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PAM
Right. And the first question that I had when reading this book is that
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PAM
you start our story first of all, by dedicating it to I want to make sure I get her name, Rufina Amaya Marquez. Who was Rufina Amaya Marquez?
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CLAUDIA
Rufina Amaya Marquez was the only survivor of the massacre at El Mozoté, which took place in December of 1981.
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CLAUDIA
when the war in El Salvador ended, the two parts of the conflict, meaning the government of El Salvador and the guerrilla armed forces, the FMLN, the Farabundo Martí Liberation National Front,
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CLAUDIA
met in Chapultepec, Mexico, on January 16th of 1992 to sign what it was historically very monumental, which was the peace accords ending that conflict, and among the many aspects of the Peace Accords agreement, there was the creation of an international commission to investigate violations of human rights that were perpetrated during the many years of the war that was called the United Nations Truth Commission.
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CLAUDIA
So the United Nations Truth Commission had the mandate to investigate violations of human rights against civilian population. With that mandate, the Truth Commission nominated the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team to perform the exhumation at the massacre place of El Mozoté. It is important to say that El Mozoté's massacre was not the only one. There are many, many massacres perpetrated during the war, but there were a number of circumstances of the massacre in El Mozoté that made it paradigmatic.
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CLAUDIA
That's the the legal term. One of those aspects of the uniqueness of this massacre is the number of victims. There were more than 1000 victims in a small hamlet in the north of Morazán, which is the northern eastern part of El Salvador. And the other paradigmatic aspect is the whole case of investigation expands from only one testimony, which was Rufinu’s.
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CLAUDIA
So Rufina narrates in her testimony what what happened at El Mozoté between December 11th and 12. When one talks about the massacre at El Mozoté as a legal case, is not only the hamlet of El Mozoté. Is El Mozoté, La Jolla, Cerro Pando, rancheria, Jocote Amarillo mean the whole massacre at El Mozoté that happened between the 11th of December and the end of December included many other hamlets around El Mozoté, but El Mozoté was the one chosen by the United Nations Truth Commission.
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CLAUDIA
So Rufina is the one who told us the story, right? And it was a life changing moment meeting Rufina and to learn about her story, to become friends eventually. And that's why I dedicate the book to her.
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PAM
Right. And you were part of that exhumation that occurred there. Is that correct?
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CLAUDIA
That is correct. I should remark that I'm not a forensic anthropologist. I am an artist.
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CLAUDIA
My sister, Patricia Bernardi, is a founding member of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology team. So when
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CLAUDIA
exhumation of the massacre was being planned, Patri asked me if I could come to El Mozoté to create the archeological maps.
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CLAUDIA
So I am in the context of the investigation, I am the cartographer. So in this particular case, and in any case of investigation, the archeological maps show the rendering of the physical space where the exhumation is going to take place, and imagining that the Argentine forensic team will find human remains. The archeological maps identify the location where the human remains are being found and associated objects, which counts for garments, clothing,
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CLAUDIA
objects that belong to the life of the people at the time of the massacre and very importantly, especially very importantly in this case, ballistic information, ballistic evidence.
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CLAUDIA
So the archeological maps are showing the physical location of the massacre. Then the physicality of the human remains and then the ballistic evidence and the ballistic evidence coincides with the human remains and with the physical space. So the visual evidence of the maps are a visual rendering of the massacre in real time.
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PAM
Right? So in reading this opening, this introduction to your book, it seemed like it was during this whole process that the seed of an idea
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PAM
sort of came to you of.
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PAM
Of what
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PAM
you might do with art in a place that had experienced this type of violence. I'm wondering if you could share what you started imagining then.
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CLAUDIA
Yes. It's very moving
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CLAUDIA
to hear you saying what? What you thought about it during the reading of the book. Because this is precisely what happened in the actual
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CLAUDIA
voracity of the day, as we would get up very early in this very, you know, close to the end of the war, etc.. So pretty much the place was of difficult access. We would wake up very early, like 3:00. We would, you know, go through this very different access to El Mozoté to arrive there at 7 a.m. or sooner, and then work and work until the rain would chase us out, you know.
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CLAUDIA
But there was such a rigorous, such a rigorous kind of work, totally concentrated on what we were doing. But many times, many times I would take a distance. So just especially because my role was that of making the maps so I would physically remove myself slightly or going a little higher on the original border area of the building.
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CLAUDIA
And from there I was seen like in a very clear, tragic way, the evidence of the massacre. And by then it was also very clear that the original testimony that Rufina had given was incorrect, because Rufina had given the testimony that while she was in front of the place where we were exhuming, she saw men and male teenagers being taken from the church.
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CLAUDIA
Some of them were killed, some others were introduced to this into this building, which was adjacent to the original church. And then at the end of the the day of the massacre, she is being taken out of that house and physically removed away. So for a period of time she doesn't really see what is happening. And then, as she always said, by the grace of God, by a miracle she was able to hide and survive.
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CLAUDIA
So the original testimony says that she saw men and male teenagers being introduced into the building that we were exhuming, and when we were exhuming, what we found is that the majority of the people we were finding were very young, were children. And that's the outcome of the Argentine Forensic report, is that we found a total of 143 people, 136 of whom were children under the age of 12, when an average age of six years of age.
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CLAUDIA
So what it is clear is that from the time that Rufina could see what was happening and the time that she is in hiding,
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CLAUDIA
the children that were kept somewhere else, we don't know when were introduced into that building and assassinated inside. That's what the ballistic report is able to provide as evidence. So at the time that I was doing that and taking this physical moment of distance and seeing all these children, I, I kept on thinking what it would be like to come back here and work in art with children of the same age
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CLAUDIA
we are exhuming. And still, when I go back to that memory, so frightening and also provocative, because what can we do with that evidence? But, Pam, I'm I'm just an artist. I'm an artist. That's the only thing I know how to do. So for me, the the evidence of this tragedy presented the question, what it would be like to come back here and create art with children of the same age
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CLAUDIA
we are exhuming. And it took many years. It took many years to go. Then there's another moment, very important moment in the process, which is when I came back physically from El Salvador to Berkeley, where I was living at the time, you know, using a phrase that belongs to Garcia Marquez. The body arrived and the soul lingered.
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CLAUDIA
The body was here in Berkeley and the soul was in El Salvador, and I, you know, nothing seemed right. Everything seemed. I mean, everything seemed not the reality that I was supposed to be in. But I didn't know what that was. And I am very thankful to poets. I always thank them that they have the same amount of words that we do, but they use it better.
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CLAUDIA
So I read this beautiful poem by Czeslaw Milosz.
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CLAUDIA
It's a long, beautiful poem that is called On Angels. And the last three stanzas, this last three lines. I'm, I'm repeating I, I, I'm not absolutely sure it's like that, but the concept is each day brings near another one. Do what you can. And that awareness brought such a new anchor, like a new compass for me, because it it brought me to the very essential question what is what I need to do?
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CLAUDIA
What can I do? Because I could do art work, I could go to my studio. I did go to the studio. The art had profoundly changed. I didn't even know what was happening. But of course the art changed. It was the first time that I started doing installations, and that was almost a revelation to me, because it had a lot more to do with what I had seen, and retaining memory that anything that could be necessarily adapted to what an art form is, is, is.
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CLAUDIA
It was hard for me to identify, but but I did. I started doing installations, which was a new, wonderful vocabulary, very apropos at that time, but that was not it. I knew that that was not it until it was clear that I needed to go back to El Salvador and create a school of art for children of the same age we had exhumed.
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PAM
Right. Is that the Walls of Hope? Is that the name of the school?
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CLAUDIA
That is Walls of Hope. So Walls of Hope started as a proposition that had many angles, many angles. And I had worked here in the United States and here in the Bay area with,
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CLAUDIA
the community from El Salvador and Guatemala. I worked at two different locations. This was a project that was funded by the California Arts Council to work in projects
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CLAUDIA
political refugees and survivors of torture from Latin America.
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CLAUDIA
So I knew how to present the invitation, so to speak, to people who have suffered political violence. But that was completely different to being in a place that was a place of war. And I'm someone, Pam, who resists vehemently the concept of postwar, because that gives us, I think, the illusion that a conflict can be over. And I don't think that's possible.
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CLAUDIA
I think when there is a war, there's always a war. And the the damage of the war is persistent generation after generation. So to,
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CLAUDIA
to to say postwar is not something that I want to use. I understand why, but to be right there, four kilometers north from where the massacre place was, this place is called Perquin The war was felt as if it had ended the day before.
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CLAUDIA
The conflicts, the poverty, the awareness, the fear, all that. Right. So when I first arrived to Perquin I proposed to the mayor at the time and to other people, the community, if they wanted to work in art. And, you know, this is a place of war. So what was beautiful about it, what was beautiful about it, is that they never said no.
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CLAUDIA
They always said yes. So for me, the creation of Walls of Hope is from the very beginning, not my project, but the proposition of a project. And that is something that I knew very early that this could not be a Bernardi project. This needed to be a local project that included local people. And that is how my beloved friends and dear colleagues Dina, who is America Argentina Vaquerano Romero, Claudia Verenice Flores Escolero, and Rosa del Carmen Argueta Argueta.
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CLAUDIA
These three women started being part of the workshops and then they became wonderful teachers. Unbeknownst to them, they were wonderful artists, teachers, administrators and that is the origin of Walls of Hope. So Walls of Hope, if I were to define what it is, is a very different kind of educational proposition that involves arts, the arts, human rights, conflict resolution, diplomacy, because this is a place where people who were living in Perquin at the time had fought the war in different armies, and that was present in everything.
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CLAUDIA
And we knew from the very beginning that we could not we did not want to have any affiliation with one side or the other. Well, that is one phrase that one says, but it is so hard to make it happen. Right. And we also very early knew that this was a place that would welcome everyone, especially the children.
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CLAUDIA
So, you know, little by little, little by little, it was a learning process. We learned a lot from the success, but we learned a lot from the mistakes we made. And and we understood that this was a truly it was a political activity that it couldn't have an affiliation, it shouldn't have an affiliation. But interestingly, out of that determination, we succeeded.
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CLAUDIA
And the school of Art remain. And it was just beautiful. What part of the book tells is that the community saw us and saw Walls of Hope as the beauty maker. So, you know, they would come and ask us if we could do a wedding dress. I had never made a wedding dress, but I said, well, why not cut the hair?
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CLAUDIA
You know, decorations, decorations for christening children, decoration for funerals. They the community understood that we were, for lack of a better term, beauty makers. And we would say yes to everything and then figure out how to do that. It was very fun. It was really very fun. And it was a time in which there was really nothing in Perquin.
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CLAUDIA
I mean, this it was very affected by the war. So that was another interesting aspect of Walls of Hope. We had no funding, we had almost no art materials, we had no school, we had no physical place. And that, of course, which was a challenge. It it also became an interesting diplomatic liaison because the ones that had fought the war in one side or the other, if they wanted us to continue doing art projects, they have to figure out where to put us.
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CLAUDIA
So and we said everything. We said yes to everything. Sometimes the conditions were hugely precarious, like, you know, having the art class in a corridor barely covered by a roof in the middle of the rainy season, so we didn't know what to give the children first, either the paper or a towel, because everything was so incredibly wet. But we never said no.
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CLAUDIA
We accepted what the community was willing to give us, and I think that flexibility was a good factor was a very positive aspect of how Walls of Hope emerge, continue and grew and expanded, because then Walls of Hope is a you know, what we call now. The Perquin model is basically what this book, Art Against Brutality is about.
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CLAUDIA
We have a methodology the chicas and I have a methodology of work that is relatively simple. What it is not simple is the conditions in which this project are going to take place. Because although the work is an art project, is a mural project, the circumstances that leave us to get into this place and also, you know, who are the participants.
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CLAUDIA
It's very different to any kind of art project that we may find, let's say in an art school where it's very protective. I mean, we have to be extremely careful issues regarding safety for the participants of our selves, and that has to do with being in a conflict area.
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PAM
Right? Right. Well, in speaking about your book, it seems like a really big theme is remembering.
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PAM
And I'm wondering, can you talk a little bit about what it is that's being remembered, what we're being asked to witness, and remember what the participants are remembering and why that is such an important part of these projects.
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CLAUDIA
Yes. So first of all, what I would like to share with your audience is that the way I see
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CLAUDIA
my role and the way I see the role of my dear colleagues and friends, the chicas, I call them the chicas. We are facilitators. We do not touch the mural. We do not propose anything. We do not suggest one thing or the other.
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CLAUDIA
We enter each project with an open heart and many questions. So in regards to your question to me when I ask that. So in what we call the choreography of the piece, the first part of any project we share with the participants of this new project where we are coming from. So the chicas come from El Salvador and the war in El Salvador I come from Argentina and the military dictatorship.
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CLAUDIA
We tell the story of where we are coming from. And and then we produce a question to them. You know, these people have been, congregated they have been invited to be part of this project because they have something in common. Let's take as an example the women in Huehuetenango. These were 35 women who were survivors of sexual violence during the armed conflict.
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CLAUDIA
What was really interesting about this group of women is they all came from Huehuetenango, which is the northwestern part of Guatemala. But they spoke all different languages. They did not understand each other. They had to rely on the interpreter as much as we had to rely on the interpreters. So that's in itself amazing to think about the fact that they had been brutalized for a same crime, but they did not know that this had happened to other women.
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CLAUDIA
So our question my question to them is, what is this mural going to be about? And in the context of the circumstances that I just described most frequently, not to say always, the participants want to talk about what happened to them. In this particular case, of Huehuetenango was poignantly interesting because the women wanted to use the mural as a prop to talk to their daughters of what had happened to them, because they had not spoken to the daughters about what happened to them.
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CLAUDIA
So what this murals are about is about shared memories that the participants are willing, capable to speak about in a visual form. But this is not what I generate. The question is very simple what is this mural going to be about? There are some normalizing questions that we always ask, such as does this mural have past, present, and future?
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CLAUDIA
And if it does, where would you place the past, where the present were the future? And sometimes murals have that, sometimes they don't. But that is the beginning of what in visual arts can be called the composition. Right now, if one thinks about the traditional form to think about visual arts, one thinks about form, color and composition. But in this projects, form, color and composition has another component, which is memory, personal and communal.
00;31;55;04 - 00;32;37;05
CLAUDIA
And I think that creates a completely different paradigm of creation in which the one who draws draws herself, himself, themselves in relationship to a history that belongs to all of them. Many times the participants of these murals don't know each other. Before we get together in front of a white wall of a white canvas, but the reason for which they are congregated in front of the mural is because they share a history, and it is up to them to find how to tell it.
00;32;37;08 - 00;33;12;26
CLAUDIA
So in relationship to your very good questions about what is, what the viewer gets or what the viewer should get, that is something that I'm afraid I cannot answer. What I can only say is that when the murals have been exhibited or have traveled, have been able to tell a story, the viewers learn something in another form than reading about it or statistics.
00;33;12;26 - 00;33;54;06
CLAUDIA
And in any kind of literature about conflict, there is so much to be said, but it is infrequent that one gets to learn about the catastrophe of violence from the victims, and I think that is what you get. If you look at the murals and if you spend time making connections, and another aspect that is as mysterious as it is monumental is that these murals are very beautiful.
00;33;54;08 - 00;34;38;16
CLAUDIA
They're they are composed with sorrow, they are born from tragedy. And they end up being such a remarkable wonder of beauty and how that happens. I have no idea. I have no idea. I just know that that happens. I look at that with amazement in many, many, many times. The participants of this well, everyone in the murals that this book collects, have never done art before, and in some cases, some of the participants have not even held or even seen a paintbrush before.
00;34;38;19 - 00;34;47;26
CLAUDIA
So how can that happen from never to in a week doing this, I don't know.
00;34;47;28 - 00;35;28;21
PAM
Yes, I was so glad that there were a lot of photographs of these murals, and especially the detail photographs. I mean, it's really wonderful to see the overall piece, but within your storytelling, there's a lot about the details of of what each contributor wanted to add to the mural. And so to be able to see what the final, you know, representation of that was was really incredible.
00;35;28;21 - 00;35;55;16
PAM
I do want to ask you about, though, it seemed like you did do a community Walls of Hope mural in Argentina, and it seemed like that one, you were very apprehensive about doing that one. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your feelings of doing this type of project in Argentina?
00;35;55;18 - 00;36;24;21
CLAUDIA
The first answer to your very good question is that I didn't even know, or consciously knew that I was terrified about doing that. I had, you know, done by then, this is 2014. Quite a number of wonderful murals elsewhere. And every time I would go to Argentina, I would share that with friends and they would say, why are you not doing this here?
00;36;24;25 - 00;37;15;15
CLAUDIA
Well, you know, I was finding excuses this and that. I think the short answer to something very complex is that it's too close for comfort, for one thing, and then the practicality of it. Argentina is a country that has such an agile history with human rights. It's it's really moving in the history of the 20th century, how Argentina, after the military junta was able to come together, create the trials against the military junta, the many organizations for human rights and on behalf of human rights that there are there was a little how would I put a daunting to think how to start. Now,
00;37;15;17 - 00;37;54;20
CLAUDIA
for me, the closest connection was possibly going to be going through and with the acceptance of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, because, as I said, my sister is a founding member of the team. I know the members of the team before the team was a team, so it felt very comfortable that way. But I also knew very well that the Argentine team is impeccable in terms of being very careful and, you know, 100 percent scientific.
00;37;54;22 - 00;38;24;09
CLAUDIA
So I was simultaneously confident that I had a good way to start, but also because I knew them very well, I was fearing that they would tell me not, right? So when we had that first meeting with the team and they didn't say yes right away, but they also didn't say no right away. But then the question was, where would this mural be?
00;38;24;09 - 00;39;03;05
CLAUDIA
Because the participants I propose to work with would be families of the disappeared who had been able to find the human remains of their missing family members thanks to the work of the Argentine forensic team. When one talks about families of the disappeared, we talk about families of more than 30,000 people, but the number of people who were able to retrieve their the human remains of their loved ones through DNA testing is limited, is is smaller group.
00;39;03;05 - 00;39;37;06
CLAUDIA
So that was what I, I was proposing to the Argentine team to work with. So they would be the liaison between the art project and the participants. So then was where to do this project. And I was so ready to do something very small, very uncomplicated on a canvas at the office of the Argentine team. And one of them, Luis Fondebrider, said, well, why don't you do it at ESMA?
00;39;37;08 - 00;40;10;02
CLAUDIA
And I, I remember physically was I like a donkey hitting me in the chest. ESMA is Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada. That's the Navy Mechanical School, the largest clandestine center of detention and extermination of Argentina. So to imagine creating a mural in the largest clandestine center of detention, torture and extermination was something that I had not contemplated.
00;40;10;02 - 00;40;24;02
CLAUDIA
But that brought many other questions, like something obvious would the participants want to go physically to that place? So those were initial
00;40;24;05 - 00;41;13;17
CLAUDIA
challenges of this project that were being rendered on one side, a solution on the other side. But what was beautiful about this project, first of all, my sister said, okay, if we contact five family members, five families and three say no, this is the end of this project. So I was okay. But you know that not only did not happen, but the way Patri and the Argentine team progressed with this project was by very carefully approaching the families of the disappeared in a very respectful, very careful way, and proposing this as something that could happen.
00;41;13;17 - 00;41;54;24
CLAUDIA
And we received, unanimously, responses that were saying incredibly moving things such as, you know, we are indebted to the Argentine forensic team, our life changed when we received the human remains. But all that intensity and all that anticipation and then the receiving of the human remains was so huge. And then it stopped. So this mural project was a possibility for them to continue having a sense of belonging to a story that all of them share.
00;41;54;27 - 00;42;23;29
CLAUDIA
And that is what the mural at ESMA is about is incredible, really. And I remember writing to a friend a very fast email saying, I'm writing this email very fast because I have to go with the mural paints to ESMA. And then I stop and I said, I have to take the mural paints to ESMA. Can you imagine?
00;42;24;00 - 00;43;20;14
CLAUDIA
I mean, my head exploded at that time, thinking, we are entering this place of horror with brushes and colors and memories. It's, you know, I don't know. El Mozoté for me was a brain transplant. And the mural at ESMA painted by the families of the disappeared is another brain transplant is a is a change of paradigm. Right. And I still wonder you know so this I think that chapter ends with this very subtle and persistent moment of awareness sometimes, you know, I don't know, I'm cleaning the house or or watering the plants or cooking something.
00;43;20;14 - 00;43;28;26
CLAUDIA
And I think did did we really paint a mural at ESMA? And the answer is yes, we did paint a mural.
00;43;28;28 - 00;44;12;06
PAM
Yeah, I, I love all the murals, but that is one of my favorite murals. Some of the details of that especially are incredibly moving. And I am going to say, I know we talked about this through email, so I prepared you for this question because I know there are legal parameters around what you can speak, but, you know, all of the, all of these horrific, acts of violence were very devastating.
00;44;12;06 - 00;44;23;14
PAM
But the chapter that haunts me is the mural projects you did with the incarcerated youth, the unaccompanied,
00;44;23;14 - 00;44;34;05
PAM
juvenile migrants from Central America, mostly, but also from Mexico. That chapter haunts me
00;44;34;08 - 00;44;37;12
PAM
because.
00;44;37;14 - 00;44;55;11
PAM
I feel like the other chapters, there was a real ability for transformation and movement, and the one about the incarcerated youth. It sounded so.
00;44;55;13 - 00;45;24;03
PAM
Kind of maybe one of the worst things I can imagine, the state of not knowing what's going to happen to you, not knowing if you're ever going to be liberated. So first of all, I can't believe that you were able to do these projects with them. But can you? What you can talk about, can you share a little bit about these projects with these, these these youth?
00;45;24;05 - 00;45;33;22
CLAUDIA
Yes. And I and I thank you for the opportunity because I, I agree with you. I think
00;45;33;25 - 00;45;43;24
CLAUDIA
we are living in a moment of torment. I think maybe what you felt
00;45;43;26 - 00;45;48;04
CLAUDIA
in terms of the other projects is that tragic as they
00;45;48;04 - 00;45;51;19
CLAUDIA
were, there was a
00;45;51;19 - 00;45;57;10
CLAUDIA
historical realm that places them before
00;45;57;13 - 00;45;58;26
CLAUDIA
the mural
00;45;58;29 - 00;46;11;29
CLAUDIA
and the murals painted within the criminal justice system in the United States by undocumented, unaccompanied Central American migrant minors
00;46;12;01 - 00;46;19;17
CLAUDIA
is happening now, when you and I are talking and your listeners are listening.
00;46;19;20 - 00;46;24;08
CLAUDIA
This is a torment that is happening right now.
00;46;24;10 - 00;46;36;21
CLAUDIA
And that it doesn't seem to be in any time better, safer,
00;46;36;23 - 00;46;49;11
CLAUDIA
empathetic in any time soon. If anything, what it shows or what has shown me within the time that I work with, is that the policies that
00;46;49;14 - 00;46;59;04
CLAUDIA
affect these migrant Central American undocumented migrants that are minors are getting tougher,
00;46;59;04 - 00;47;00;23
CLAUDIA
crueler,
00;47;00;25 - 00;47;03;22
CLAUDIA
more devastatingly unjust.
00;47;03;27 - 00;47;12;06
CLAUDIA
And this is happening while you and I are talking and your listeners are listening. And I'm repeating on purpose, because there is
00;47;12;06 - 00;47;12;10
CLAUDIA
a
00;47;12;13 - 00;47;17;01
CLAUDIA
rhythm and the rhythm is catastrophic.
00;47;17;02 - 00;47;20;16
CLAUDIA
So my,
00;47;20;18 - 00;47;24;04
CLAUDIA
so many discoveries from working in this project,
00;47;24;06 - 00;47;24;18
CLAUDIA
first
00;47;24;21 - 00;47;25;24
CLAUDIA
and above all,
00;47;25;26 - 00;47;36;02
CLAUDIA
is that all the young men and women that I met within the criminal justice system of the United States
00;47;36;04 - 00;47;37;04
CLAUDIA
never
00;47;37;09 - 00;47;45;01
CLAUDIA
wanted to commit a crime. They are the they are
00;47;45;05 - 00;47;58;12
CLAUDIA
they are the embodiment of the outcome of a system that placed them out of poverty and circumstances, in situations that they could not fully manage.
00;47;58;12 - 00;48;04;26
CLAUDIA
And I like to give you an example, because it's so clear. This is
00;48;04;29 - 00;48;30;00
CLAUDIA
a vignette on a mural, large mural. He was not allowed to come out to paint on the mural, so he sent his drawing. And the drawing is. So this was a drawing created by an a young man from Honduras, aged 16. And what the viewer sees is someone with a weapon killing someone else and that someone else is falling,
00;48;30;00 - 00;48;58;22
CLAUDIA
so it's sort of diagonally placed on top of a mountain of other bodies that also have been killed. And there is a there is a text that accompanies this incredibly powerful drawing that one can understand is being created by someone who didn't have a lot of schooling for the way the rendering of the script is and the grammatical mistakes.
00;48;58;22 - 00;49;05;08
CLAUDIA
But the message is so powerful it says, stop
00;49;05;13 - 00;49;20;17
CLAUDIA
the violence. The government of Honduras has the obligation to create work options for us, the youth do it for peace and do it for us.
00;49;20;20 - 00;49;21;10
CLAUDIA
Pam.
00;49;21;14 - 00;49;25;29
CLAUDIA
That is how the problem is being solutioned.
00;49;26;01 - 00;49;45;05
CLAUDIA
What these kids need are options that they don't have, and I feel that as an adult, I have a responsibility to say I am partly responsible for this, because what that kids is saying is precisely what we all should be thinking in Honduras and outside Honduras.
00;49;45;05 - 00;50;23;23
CLAUDIA
So all these paraphernalia of the criminal justice system will not work now or ever. This is not how you solution a problem, right? So that is one of the things I learn. And and, you know, among all the many other aspects of the lives of these young men and women who have such a tenacity for life and who I know if they would be ushered towards a different kind of alternative, they will be remarkable men and women, and I'm someone who is determined not to do sugar coating.
00;50;23;25 - 00;50;53;13
CLAUDIA
I mean, I'm Argentine by temperament. I can not sugarcoat anything. So this is not romanticizing the victim problem, but it is a realization that these kids have seen so much in such a short time. They have they are equipped to see the world differently, but they cannot do it alone. They are kids, they are young. And and this is not what the criminal justice system is offering them.
00;50;53;15 - 00;51;07;03
CLAUDIA
This is not a solution. This is a cruel torment that will continue to be the torment. And we are responsible for even learning about it and knowing about it and doing nothing about it.
00;51;07;09 - 00;51;31;03
CLAUDIA
Right. It's, you’re right, is one of the most devastating chapters in the book, and to me, on a personal journey. One of the murals is the third mural that the book acknowledges, which has a remarkable name, is called Allow Me to Flower One More Time.
00;51;31;05 - 00;51;31;16
CLAUDIA
There's
00;51;31;19 - 00;51;31;28
CLAUDIA
a
00;51;32;01 - 00;51;42;24
CLAUDIA
beautiful heart painted in the center, and the message is that please allow me, give me another chance. That's what the mural is asking. And
00;51;42;27 - 00;51;43;03
CLAUDIA
as
00;51;43;03 - 00;51;50;24
CLAUDIA
we were painting the mural, and you know, all the things happen. People here, people there
00;51;50;26 - 00;52;00;03
CLAUDIA
is like a whole symphony. But there was one young man that was painting the right side of the mural with a lot of battered flies.
00;52;00;07 - 00;52;42;20
CLAUDIA
And so he said, come here when I'm painting and tell me something about Argentina. I don't know anything about Argentina. And so I did as much as I can. He was very surprised about learning about the disappeared. He had never heard anything about it. And, you know, many other things. So the day the mural was finished and we had a christening and, you know, presentation to the people in, in this setting, in this jail, he, he looked for me and said, I really would like to talk to you, even if briefly, in a more private way.
00;52;42;21 - 00;52;45;11
CLAUDIA
And I thought a private way in criminal justice system. I
00;52;45;11 - 00;52;46;03
CLAUDIA
don’t think it would work,
00;52;46;07 - 00;52;51;22
CLAUDIA
but. Okay. We found a place that was a little more,
00;52;51;24 - 00;52;52;16
CLAUDIA
less, less
00;52;52;19 - 00;53;02;14
CLAUDIA
invaded by other people. And he said, you know, I've been thinking a lot about what you told me about the disappeared in your country.
00;53;02;17 - 00;53;03;02
CLAUDIA
And
00;53;03;02 - 00;53;03;15
CLAUDIA
I want
00;53;03;16 - 00;53;11;18
CLAUDIA
to tell you that I think the disappeared of your country are lucky because you are still looking for them.
00;53;11;21 - 00;53;13;07
CLAUDIA
We are the disappeared
00;53;13;12 - 00;53;19;12
CLAUDIA
that no one is looking for and no one will ever find.
00;53;19;15 - 00;53;28;15
CLAUDIA
And Pam, I didn't have the heart to tell him he was wrong because he is absolutely right.
00;53;28;20 - 00;53;29;17
CLAUDIA
They are the
00;53;29;20 - 00;53;34;04
CLAUDIA
disappeared that no one will look for and no one will find.
00;53;34;12 - 00;53;35;26
CLAUDIA
They will be trapped
00;53;35;28 - 00;53;45;26
CLAUDIA
within the thicket of the criminal justice system of the United States for many years to come.
00;53;45;28 - 00;53;54;22
PAM
Yeah, that's.
00;53;54;24 - 00;53;58;04
PAM
It's a really hard thing to think about.
00;53;58;06 - 00;53;59;18
CLAUDIA
Yes it is.
00;53;59;21 - 00;54;00;27
PAM
Yeah.
00;54;01;00 - 00;54;02;21
CLAUDIA
And it is also something that
00;54;02;22 - 00;54;03;01
CLAUDIA
could
00;54;03;03 - 00;54;04;04
CLAUDIA
be different.
00;54;04;08 - 00;54;05;11
PAM
It could be.
00;54;05;14 - 00;54;06;14
PAM
In fact,
00;54;06;16 - 00;54;09;07
PAM
you have to ask yourself,
00;54;09;09 - 00;54;14;29
PAM
why did it ever become this way?
00;54;15;02 - 00;54;25;11
CLAUDIA
It opens so many questions about what is the perception of these kids among the general public. You know, what is
00;54;25;15 - 00;54;29;20
CLAUDIA
the political rhetoric of calling migrants
00;54;29;23 - 00;54;37;03
CLAUDIA
rapists or calling migrants. Criminals or calling migrants
00;54;37;09 - 00;54;40;18
CLAUDIA
othering them? They are the aggression.
00;54;40;23 - 00;54;46;03
CLAUDIA
Emphatically not. They are not the aggression.
00;54;46;06 - 00;54;51;26
CLAUDIA
They are the victims of a system of power in the wrong hands.
00;54;51;29 - 00;55;06;15
CLAUDIA
That's what they are. But they are also very young. As adults, we should ask that. So. But, you know, in the context of the narrative that the United States seems to be embracing is
00;55;06;17 - 00;55;10;01
CLAUDIA
not only morally corrupt and wrong,
00;55;10;07 - 00;55;12;14
CLAUDIA
it is embarrassing.
00;55;12;17 - 00;55;14;18
CLAUDIA
It is embarrassing.
00;55;14;21 - 00;55;19;06
CLAUDIA
One of the greatest books I read last year is
00;55;19;06 - 00;55;28;04
CLAUDIA
is by Omar El Akkad and takes the, you know, the, the, the investigation is on Gaza, Palestine.
00;55;28;04 - 00;55;28;16
CLAUDIA
But
00;55;28;16 - 00;55;58;04
CLAUDIA
I was particularly attracted and in awe and in admiration and thankfulness to the title. The title is “One Day Everyone Would Have Been Against This”, and I, I want to think that at one level in our consciousness, somehow hidden somewhere there is the awareness that there are many decisions that are being taken that are simply
00;55;58;08 - 00;55;59;24
CLAUDIA
embarrassing
00;55;59;27 - 00;56;01;04
CLAUDIA
and wrong,
00;56;01;06 - 00;56;02;19
CLAUDIA
and that will make us
00;56;02;19 - 00;56;03;27
CLAUDIA
feel really,
00;56;04;01 - 00;56;10;11
CLAUDIA
really guilty at one point hoping that there is some kind of amendment in the future.
00;56;10;11 - 00;56;11;27
CLAUDIA
And yes, one day
00;56;12;00 - 00;56;12;12
CLAUDIA
everyone
00;56;12;19 - 00;56;30;29
CLAUDIA
would have been against this. But now there are many that are in favor and that is perplexing to me. But again, you know the narrative that is being used today in the United States against the migrants and especially against the minors that are migrants,
00;56;30;29 - 00;56;32;07
CLAUDIA
and we have not even
00;56;32;10 - 00;56;42;28
CLAUDIA
touched on the awareness of realization and presentation of facts that children are being separated from their parents.
00;56;43;00 - 00;56;51;12
CLAUDIA
So think about you and your life. And if you have a child in your life. Think about the possibility that the child is separated from the parents
00;56;51;12 - 00;57;08;13
CLAUDIA
for one afternoon, and then multiply that for years, and then try to figure out right to the very obvious question, what kind of young men and women those separated children would be, right?
00;57;08;20 - 00;57;20;18
CLAUDIA
It doesn't take much thinking to understand what is the logic behind that separation. And it's also not hard to anticipate that we are
00;57;20;20 - 00;57;22;16
CLAUDIA
contributing, we, as
00;57;22;16 - 00;57;30;09
CLAUDIA
spectators of this are contributing to a world that will lead to more carnage and devastation,
00;57;30;13 - 00;57;35;11
CLAUDIA
because certain things are simply wrong and morally
00;57;35;15 - 00;57;36;01
CLAUDIA
corrupt,
00;57;36;01 - 00;57;41;09
CLAUDIA
and they are crimes, and they should be called even crimes against humanity.
00;57;41;11 - 00;57;42;05
PAM
I agree.
00;57;42;10 - 00;57;53;13
CLAUDIA
Whole concept keeps on being expanding. It's really interesting in the context of Argentina. When the military junta ended, Argentina didn't have
00;57;53;16 - 00;57;57;09
CLAUDIA
a paradigm of law that included
00;57;57;09 - 00;57;58;05
CLAUDIA
violations of
00;57;58;05 - 00;58;01;01
CLAUDIA
human rights against civilian population and
00;58;01;03 - 00;58;01;27
CLAUDIA
crimes against
00;58;01;27 - 00;58;02;21
CLAUDIA
humanity
00;58;02;21 - 00;58;04;11
CLAUDIA
in the country, because
00;58;04;11 - 00;58;12;09
CLAUDIA
one doesn't expect that in a democratic country the government will be responsible for this. So Argentina,
00;58;12;12 - 00;58;22;04
CLAUDIA
exemplary, I would say, had to go through an enormous revision of the Constitution to create the paradigms of the
00;58;22;07 - 00;58;22;29
CLAUDIA
trials
00;58;23;01 - 00;58;25;02
CLAUDIA
against the military junta.
00;58;25;05 - 00;58;55;14
CLAUDIA
In another words, language needed to be recuperated, reobserved and recontextualized to place in the context of a trial. The same is true about Nuremberg. There were no legislations that apply to that kind of crime. I believe, Pam, that we are in a time that is similar. We are witnessing violations of human rights against civilians that are being disguised as new law.
00;58;55;14 - 00;59;00;18
CLAUDIA
But that is a mistake and that is a crime.
00;59;00;24 - 00;59;05;19
CLAUDIA
And I don't know if I will see it to be tried, but I think we are in
00;59;05;22 - 00;59;06;26
CLAUDIA
absolute need
00;59;06;26 - 00;59;10;26
CLAUDIA
of a change of paradigm of law, right?
00;59;11;02 - 00;59;14;17
CLAUDIA
Locally, nationally,
00;59;14;19 - 00;59;16;09
CLAUDIA
internationally.
00;59;16;11 - 00;59;26;27
CLAUDIA
We are in time in which the others are becoming an object of violence only for not being like
00;59;27;01 - 00;59;27;20
CLAUDIA
us.
00;59;27;25 - 00;59;34;12
CLAUDIA
That's something that a wonderful neuroscientist, Robert Sapolsky
00;59;34;12 - 00;59;51;00
CLAUDIA
I'm such a fan of Doctor Sapolsky, but he wrote one of one of many books that he wrote is called Behave. And it starts with the understanding of what happens neurologically when one identifies the self different than others,
00;59;51;07 - 00;59;52;27
CLAUDIA
the othering
00;59;53;00 - 01;00;06;14
CLAUDIA
of others. And I think from that awareness of neuroscience to the exposure to the violence of a narrative that continues to
01;00;06;16 - 01;00;07;06
CLAUDIA
other
01;00;07;06 - 01;00;12;00
CLAUDIA
people who are different than us, it's a terrible mistake
01;00;12;02 - 01;00;13;02
CLAUDIA
and it's once again
01;00;13;06 - 01;00;14;12
CLAUDIA
embarrassing.
01;00;14;14 - 01;00;17;14
CLAUDIA
We have seen it already. Hello.
01;00;17;16 - 01;00;33;20
CLAUDIA
Don't you remember 1944, 1936? 1945? Do you remember that in Europe? And we are not even counting the violence in our continent, the whole massacres in the indigenous population of
01;00;33;21 - 01;00;35;14
CLAUDIA
all the continent.
01;00;35;17 - 01;00;49;09
CLAUDIA
And have we not learned anything from that? So it appears that the answer is a robust no, but I think.
01;00;49;12 - 01;00;58;26
CLAUDIA
I do not want to leave with a no. I want to live with that other concept that Omar El Akkad brings. One day
01;00;58;29 - 01;00;59;22
CLAUDIA
everyone
01;00;59;22 - 01;01;12;22
CLAUDIA
would have been against that. And I think for me, the working in this community based project where people have suffered the unfathomable, I have never
01;01;12;27 - 01;01;13;29
CLAUDIA
once
01;01;14;02 - 01;01;22;08
CLAUDIA
experienced the bitterness of violence against others. They don't speak about it.
01;01;22;12 - 01;01;23;21
CLAUDIA
They preserve
01;01;23;21 - 01;01;26;13
CLAUDIA
their identity as
01;01;26;16 - 01;01;41;04
CLAUDIA
victims that they are, but they are committed to imagine a future that is more just even more beautiful. And that's incredible, right?
01;01;41;07 - 01;01;51;28
PAM
I think that's a beautiful note to end on. I could talk about this book with you and about these ideas
01;01;52;01 - 01;01;53;13
PAM
for several more hours,
01;01;53;13 - 01;01;56;08
PAM
but I know that you have
01;01;56;10 - 01;01;56;21
PAM
other
01;01;56;22 - 01;02;11;18
PAM
things to do today. Can you tell people where they can find the book? Learn more about Walls of Hope and about your work in general?
01;02;11;20 - 01;02;47;19
CLAUDIA
Well, the book was published by New Village Press. There is a web page called Art Against Brutality dot net. So that is a way where the readers can also see more photographs. There are many photographs in the book, but there are many more in the web page. So that's something I'm very thankful to Lynn Elizabeth and New Village Press for hosting this web page.
01;02;47;21 - 01;03;15;27
CLAUDIA
I know that the book is going to be launched and at bookstores from June 20th on. I know that several bookstores in the Bay Area are carrying it, but I think this the safest one would be to go to New Village Press. There's a possibility to acquire the book ahead of time, and then trying to find out where, where else to purchase that.
01;03;15;27 - 01;03;24;00
CLAUDIA
And in terms of Walls of Hope, we have a web page is website called Walls of Hope
01;03;24;03 - 01;03;28;27
CLAUDIA
w w w Walls of Hope dot org.
01;03;28;29 - 01;03;29;13
CLAUDIA
It is
01;03;29;16 - 01;03;31;07
CLAUDIA
eternally outdated
01;03;31;12 - 01;03;34;15
CLAUDIA
because we do a lot more work
01;03;34;17 - 01;03;39;16
CLAUDIA
that we have time to to go back to the web page and
01;03;39;18 - 01;03;40;12
CLAUDIA
you know, we are not
01;03;40;15 - 01;03;43;04
CLAUDIA
techno-anything. So
01;03;43;06 - 01;04;07;29
CLAUDIA
The website of Walls of Hope may look as if it is outdated. And that is true because we are still doing work and we are not writing a lot about it. So that's how one gets to learn about Walls of Hope. And I don't have a website for myself or my art, so you can Google Claudia, but that's the least interesting part of it.
01;04;08;01 - 01;04;12;26
CLAUDIA
You can go to the Walls of Hope and see the chicas and I working together,
01;04;12;28 - 01;04;20;25
CLAUDIA
or hopefully your audience will be interested in learning about these projects.
01;04;20;27 - 01;04;21;15
PAM
Yes.
01;04;21;16 - 01;04;27;27
CLAUDIA
Art Against Brutality presents? Yeah. To to the audience.
01;04;27;29 - 01;04;32;29
PAM
Yes. Well, thank you so much. It was such.
01;04;33;01 - 01;04;44;21
PAM
I been trying to figure out the vocabulary to use. What an impact this book has had on me reading it. So I'm so grateful to have read it. And
01;04;44;21 - 01;04;49;03
PAM
I'm so glad that you were willing to come on the show and talk about it.
01;04;49;04 - 01;05;03;26
CLAUDIA
Very thankful. I very, very happy to be, first of all, to meet you after many emails. And thank you to your audience for embracing this theme.
01;05;03;28 - 01;05;18;03
PAM
You're listening to Art Heals All Wounds.
01;05;23;09 - 01;05;26;04
PAM
Thank you so much to Claudia Bernardi
01;05;26;05 - 01;05;34;17
PAM
For sharing about her book Art Against Brutality on the show today. It was really an honor to be able to talk to her about this book.
01;05;34;20 - 01;05;34;25
PAM
I'll
01;05;34;25 - 01;05;46;02
PAM
put the website for the book up in the show notes. I hope a lot of people read this book and think about the things happening right now that we need to remember and speak of.
01;05;46;05 - 01;05;49;28
PAM
I'll also put a link to the Walls of Hope website as well.
01;05;50;01 - 01;05;50;15
PAM
Thank
01;05;50;21 - 01;06;00;14
PAM
you to everyone listening. I'm not using social media at the moment, but you can always reach me at my website, arthealsallwoundspodcast.com.
01;06;00;16 - 01;06;01;15
PAM
Like
01;06;01;18 - 01;06;04;08
PAM
everyone else in the world, I also have a Substack.
01;06;04;11 - 01;06;10;05
PAM
If you want to keep up with the show, you can subscribe and reach me that way too.
01;06;10;08 - 01;06;21;23
PAM
The music you’ve heard in this podcast is by Ketsa, Lobo Loco, and Barbara Higbie.